Tinopolis, which owns Question Time producer Mentorn and is a major supplier to Welsh-language broadcaster S4C, joins the Local Television Network – the group headed by Greg Dyke – and Channel 6 in the running for the licence to run the new network.

Channel 4 is still considering its response, and ITV's stance is unclear. But UTV, the ITV contractor serving Northern ireland, has decided not to get involved.

Expressions of interest in launching the new TV network in 2013 are due to be submitted to Hunt by Tuesday, 1 March. They are designed to focus on the concept and vision, rather than legally binding details.

Ron Jones, the Tinopolis executive chairman, said his company was acting on its own and was partly registering its interest in order to be involved as an insider in the process of developing plans to create a sustainable network of local television stations.

Jones added that he was doubtful about Tinopolis actually running a national network, but the government's plans, which are not yet fully formed, also open up potential opportunities to run local services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Tinopolis was selected to run the independently funded news consortium last year for Scotland by the previous Labour government, along with three newspaper groups. But the IFNCs were cancelled by Hunt after the general election.

Michael Wilson, the UTV managing director, said on Wednesday: "We won't be bidding to run the national spine. We struggle to see how it can make money – there is no significant extra revenue, advertisers want to put their money behind established content like The X Factor. Everyone is in a fragile state."

Wilson added that he also thought the local TV stations, as proposed, would serve too small an area and would not make money.

Ten Alps, the media company co-founded by Bob Geldof, was part of an IFNC group awarded the local news pilot for the Tyne Tees and Border region, but has also decided not to bid for the new national network at this stage.

The company said it does not want to be a network provider, but intends to see whether it can play a part in the potential supply of local programming at a later stage.

Ten Alps is currently launching a new Northern Ireland investigative journalism website, The Detail, backed with funds of £750,000.

Alex Connock, the Ten Alps chief executive, said it sees this as a potential way forward to meeting one of the key issues which local TV is supposed to address, the lack of news and current affairs from a range of suppliers.

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